Gavin wrote ...
I feel a Flagship article coming on... I was going to write one after the
Con in London but decided against it. Provisional title? "Marketing: An
Alien Concept in PBM". <g>
I'm sure Carol would be delighted to print such an article, it'll
certainly provoke a debate. Marketing is of course certainly not unknown
in PBM, just look at how Madhouse and KJC operate!
The question would be of course, would players pay a deposit. This has
been tried several times and it just didn't work, people just played
other games.
Which opens a bigger can of worms, namely why (to generalise somewhat)
are PBM players unwilling to pay what a game is actually worth? I'm
talking in terms of development work as well as time taken to run a game
and and material costs. Very few PBM's make anything like a reasonable
profit (many actually make a loss). Even some "big" PBm Companies don't
operate at the profits people think they do!
Colin.